Isaiah 40:1-5 English Standard Version

Comfort for God’s People

¹ Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare^[hardship] is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³ A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
⁵ And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

I have borrowed the title today from a book by A.W. Pink. That work has many words that should bring comfort to God’s people. If this is the passage that inspired that work, then we can simplify all those words by understanding what God has said here.

“Comfort my people” is a call to us from God. He even tells us how to do that.

“Speak tenderly” is our first instruction. Do not be harsh with one another.

Recognize what troubles others, hardships, and encourage them that in Christ they have found a pardon from their sins and that God is a God of blessings.

Verse 3 points to John the Baptist and yet we are to can talk straight with people and do not try to make things overly difficult. Straight paths get us out of the dry places faster.

Verse 4 says not to make things difficult for others. Keep the truth of God’s word simple and do not complicate the truth.

Do all this by speaking the truth in love and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and that will comfort believers more than anything else we can do for them.

Matthew 9:9 English Standard Version

Jesus Calls Matthew

⁹ As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

This is my favorite verse where Jesus says follow me. In His call to Peter Jesus leaves an instruction, “and I will make you fishers of men.” That is a compelling call and we have a Fishers of Men Fraternity with a really good ministry. With Matthew there is no promise, just a call. So why is this “follow me” so compelling that Matthew would leave his livelihood to follow a man he did not know?

The Greek word used here in Matthew 9:9 is akolouthos Strong’s number G190. But this is the interesting thing about Strong’s definition, none of the meanings, none of the references, none of the usages refer back to Matthew 9:9 as being the example of how it is used. It is an unexplained use that only holds meaning to Matthew and what was going on inside Matthew.

Most of the uses of follow or follower refer to miméomai which is to imitate, mimic, or to act like. Those usages require an understanding of what we see, and how to accomplish the act of following Christ.

In Matthew 9:9 there is no such knowledge, only a compelling move within the man that was unexplained and yet irresistible. It is in those earliest pronouncements of the gospel and the call to Christ in which in our infancy we can understand Matthew because we too do not know enough about where we are going or what we are doing. We only know enough to stand up.

If we could ask a child sitting in Jesus’s lap 2000 years ago, why they felt so comfortable with Jesus we might get a surprising answer. “Why don’t you?”